A letter to Brenda Keller on the 30th anniversary of a tragic day

Hey, Brenda. As you know, today is a big day. It marks 30 years since you left this life for the afterlife. Since I last wrote you on your birthday, I’ve started writing the rough draft about your life and what happened to you on that tragic day, Oct. 19, 1991.

I recently thought about what I was doing that day. While you were doing what you loved – riding your bike around the countryside of Dover – I was probably trying to do something I love – listening to Missouri’s football game – while “helping” my father at the Maple Leaf Festival in Baldwin City.

Right about the time you were on your bike ride, we would have been packing up and heading back to Burlingame in the old man’s red Ford pickup. We would have been celebrating the first day of what was always a good show.

There have been many times through the years that I’ve wondered what you’d be doing if you were still alive. That’s something all of your friends said when I interviewed them. Nobody knows that, at least in this life. Many say you’d be a veterinarian, married with kids. And, of course, you’d be devoted to your church and God.

As for the book, it’s a work in progress. I’ve kept a work log for the last two years. With the exception of a stretch at the end of last year when I was ill, I’ve worked on the book almost every day. In 2020, that included several phone interviews.

I finally began writing this year when my wife said that I seemed to be putting it off. And, to a degree, I was. It’s daunting work, and doing your story right means in-depth, tedious research. Some, like my wife, would say obtaining thousands of pages of documents and conducting more than 100 interviews is more than enough depth.

With her nudge, I began writing. It took a while to find the right format. In fact, the first three or four chapters will likely be revamped completely. But your story began to write itself in the chapter about the day you went missing. As of today, I’m writing about your parents’ pursuit of justice through a compensation claim against the state in the mid-1990s. Overall, I’ve written more than 75,000 words.

Several times, I’ve thought about my original goal. It was ambitious. Honestly, it was ridiculous. During one of my final graduate school classes, I mapped out a marketing plan that had the book published by the 25th anniversary of your death. That would have given me less than a year to research, write, edit and publish the book. Not even Ernest Hemingway could have pulled that off.

Ultimately, I’m grateful it’s taken so much longer than I anticipated. I’ve met so many wonderful people, including your parents, grandparents, brothers, and other family members. Many of your friends have referred to our conversations as therapy sessions. That has to be God’s work.

From time to time, I’ll hear from your friends. They’re eager to read about you and what happened. My plan is to finish a rough draft sometime next year, then massage the words until your story is done right. It’s going to be another couple of years, but all that work (six years by that point) will be worth it.